Celebrity Cruise Ship Damaged in Collision with Barge

(Update: 1:40 p.m. EST) -- Celebrity Cruises has confirmed that a scheduled call to Puerto Madryn, Argentina, will be cancelled as a result of the accident and Infinity will spend an extra three hours in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Saturday, March 1, before the cruise ends in Buenos Aires the following day.

Passengers who booked an excursion in Puerto Madryn through Celebrity will receive a refund in the form of a credit to their onboard account. Those who made private arrangements are encouraged to visit the guest relations desk for assistance.

(10:00 a.m. EST) -- A Celebrity Cruises ship was delayed in the Falkland Islands yesterday (Wednesday, February 19) after a bunker barge damaged a part of the ship used to secure tender boats.

The 90,940-ton, 2,170-passenger Celebrity Infinity got underway again today after crew worked through the night to repair the damaged davit -- the structure used to lower the tender into the water -- following the incident in the archipelago's capital, Port Stanley.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Celebrity Cruises said: "Yesterday the mechanism that holds one of our tender boats was damaged by a local bunker barge while we were alongside in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. Throughout the night, our technical team onboard worked on the impaired davit, which needed to be secured to the vessel in order to ensure a safe onward passage. Once this essential work was completed, we were able to depart Port Stanley."

Infinity is on a 14-night itinerary to South America and Antarctica, which departed from Buenos Aires on Sunday, February 16.

Cruise Critic member ghstudio posted a message on our forums saying: "Apparently the refueling tender hit one of the lifeboat davits and damaged it, so it can't be retracted and they can't pick up the last lifeboat. The decision has been made to leave the lifeboat here, and theoretically secure the davit. We were supposed to leave at 6 p.m. It is now 9:30 p.m. and there are 8 -10 men on deck under the huge davit but no one working on it. It is apparently unsafe to travel with the davit that way, so we are, for the time being, stuck."

In a later post ghstudio reported that the davit was raised and secured at around 3:30 a.m., local time, and the ship was en route to Antarctica.

Cruise Critic is awaiting confirmation from Celebrity concerning possible itinerary changes and whether passengers will receive compensation. We will update the story with any additional information.